There's a bunch of Vocaloid Personalities by now though, so just how Miku got a game they could give each of the other ones their own games. Sort of like how Pokemon gets different versions.
That shit would keep the Vita on life support for months I tell you hwat.
Correction: While it's primarily a Hatsune Miku focused game, there's six different Vocaloids total doing songs in Project Diva f.
I know this is kinda late, but wow at those Vita numbers.
However, apparently when Persona 4 came out, people bought the game and the Vita, boosting sales but they just traded them back when they were done with them. That might happen again
The real shocker for me here is the Soul Hackers numbers. It gives me hope that SMT4 will actually sell well
edit: ffs sega
Hatsune Miku Project Diva F Sequel Difficult Due to Development Costs
...Impressive figures, no doubt, but possibly not impressive enough for a sequel. After Enterbrain and Media Create released their sales stats earlier today, Miku series spokesperson Nakanohito said at Twitter that based off the current sales tend, making a Hatsune Miku Project Diva F2 would be difficult. The reason is that F's development costs were so high.
In all honesty this doesn't surprise me. The original 360 was so horribly made it should have been recalled. So whatever needs to be done to prevent the RRoD from happening again is good.
I guess it's the issue of redundancy vs. profit potential. Sony went with the later, and it got them a class-action lawsuit, as did Microsoft, which got them a serious headache.
I wonder if social games will be like MMOs where sequels will often not have near the success that the first game enjoyed.
I imagine there would be for the primary reasons that people would generally be reluctant to give up what they currently have in the original game, especially if they have been paying into the cash shop to get what they have. And I doubt they would really want to divide their time between two of what is essentially going to be the same game.
In all honesty this doesn't surprise me. The original 360 was so horribly made it should have been recalled. So whatever needs to be done to prevent the RRoD from happening again is good.
Hard to fathom them having production issues with what is largely off the shelf product.
Unless they decided to R&D, fabricate, and manufacture their own chip this generation, and if so, I seriously missed that news.
In all honesty this doesn't surprise me. The original 360 was so horribly made it should have been recalled. So whatever needs to be done to prevent the RRoD from happening again is good.
Hard to fathom them having production issues with what is largely off the shelf product.
Unless they decided to R&D, fabricate, and manufacture their own chip this generation, and if so, I seriously missed that news.
Well, red ring of death and all that. Though that debacle didn't really seem to impact 360 sales much in the long run.
At any rate, Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels, has an interview with GamesIndustry. Some bits:
(on digital, new platforms, social gaming, etc. etc.)
"I've been in the industry for a fair bit of time, and looking at the chaos that people perceive is happening out there right now, frankly, from my perspective, the underlying opportunities are so huge that we're about to embark on a whole new golden age of gaming," Gibeau says.
"Ten years ago, when Gamescom started, we measured the size of the industry at 200 million gamers; now, we're talking about a billion gamers, and we're heading towards two. That's a huge positive. Then when you look at the number of devices that are game enabled: EA now publishes across 17 different platforms; back in 2002 it was 3 or 4.
...
"The time to launch an IP is at the front-end of the hardware cycle, and if you look historically the majority of new IPS are introduced within the first 24 months of each cycle of hardware platforms," Gibeau says. "Right now, we're working on 3 to 5 new IPs for the next gen, and in this cycle we've been directing our innovation into existing franchises.
"If you look at what we're putting into Need For Speed: Most Wanted we're taking a lot of risks there, the same thing with Battlefield - you have to admit that, from Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3, there's a huge amount of change there.
"But, if you look at the market dynamics, as much as there's a desire for new IP, the market doesn't reward new IP this late in the cycle; they end up doing okay, but not really breaking through. We have to shepherd the time that our developers spend, as well as the money that we spend on development in a positive way, so we're focused on bringing out a bunch of new IPs around the next generation of hardware."
...
"When you launch a new IP it needs to do something really, really remarkable, and that's easier to do when you have a new set of technology that gives you novel capabilities," Gibeau says. "This is the longest cycle that any of us have ever seen, and we're at the point where a little bit of fatigue has set in, and people are wondering what they can possibly do next. I've seen the machines that we're building games for, and they're spectacular.
...
"From my perspective, I don't see free-to-play slowing down because it works on so many levels," he says. "Developers can go as wide or as deep as they want, and reach out to new audiences. They can build more of what people are actually consuming, as opposed to having unpopular features and modes that we spent development time on."
"I actually think that free-to-play is going to be the dominant business model in this industry before the end of the decade. It will be the model that most people are used to."
Processor customisation has been the standard procedure for designing a new console for a very long time now. Neither Microsoft, Nintendo nor Sony are gonna go for off-the-shelf parts if they can get a cheaper, more efficient console by customising the chips. Especially so if they, in the case of MS and Sony, seem to be working with Jaguar cores. There are features in general purpose CPUs that aren't necessary in a console that can be cut to reduce power consumption, and GPUs can be massively optimised for performance as well.
I'm thinking they've selected a freshly developed manufacturing process with very low yields - Say, 22 nm perhaps. They're gonna need a small node to cope with the heat and power limitations of a set-top box of course, which would be as good a reason as any for choosing it, but seeing as 22 nm is so fresh and manufacturers have had similar problems before... Yeah, I'm thinking that's where the problem lies. It wouldn't even have to be that small a node, the same problem could arise with other slightly larger nodes as well.
Alright and in this next scene all the animals have AIDS.
Well that and it's not like they have to cae that the WiiU beat them to market, since all it will get in that extra year is Nintendo titles and ports of games available on their existing systems anyway. Had Nintendo really forced their hand it'd be more of an issue, but the chances you'll see 4-5 AAA third party next gen exclusives on WiiU between now and when the NextBox launches hover right around zero whether it launches in 2013 or 2014.
Seriously, what are the chances you make back a gigantic development budget for, say, GTAV in 1080p on the WiiU alone? I'm going to guess 'fucking terrible'.
In all honesty this doesn't surprise me. The original 360 was so horribly made it should have been recalled. So whatever needs to be done to prevent the RRoD from happening again is good.
Hard to fathom them having production issues with what is largely off the shelf product.
Unless they decided to R&D, fabricate, and manufacture their own chip this generation, and if so, I seriously missed that news.
Well, red ring of death and all that. Though that debacle didn't really seem to impact 360 sales much in the long run.
At any rate, Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels, has an interview with GamesIndustry. Some bits:
(on digital, new platforms, social gaming, etc. etc.)
"I've been in the industry for a fair bit of time, and looking at the chaos that people perceive is happening out there right now, frankly, from my perspective, the underlying opportunities are so huge that we're about to embark on a whole new golden age of gaming," Gibeau says.
"Ten years ago, when Gamescom started, we measured the size of the industry at 200 million gamers; now, we're talking about a billion gamers, and we're heading towards two. That's a huge positive. Then when you look at the number of devices that are game enabled: EA now publishes across 17 different platforms; back in 2002 it was 3 or 4.
...
"The time to launch an IP is at the front-end of the hardware cycle, and if you look historically the majority of new IPS are introduced within the first 24 months of each cycle of hardware platforms," Gibeau says. "Right now, we're working on 3 to 5 new IPs for the next gen, and in this cycle we've been directing our innovation into existing franchises.
"If you look at what we're putting into Need For Speed: Most Wanted we're taking a lot of risks there, the same thing with Battlefield - you have to admit that, from Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3, there's a huge amount of change there.
"But, if you look at the market dynamics, as much as there's a desire for new IP, the market doesn't reward new IP this late in the cycle; they end up doing okay, but not really breaking through. We have to shepherd the time that our developers spend, as well as the money that we spend on development in a positive way, so we're focused on bringing out a bunch of new IPs around the next generation of hardware."
...
"When you launch a new IP it needs to do something really, really remarkable, and that's easier to do when you have a new set of technology that gives you novel capabilities," Gibeau says. "This is the longest cycle that any of us have ever seen, and we're at the point where a little bit of fatigue has set in, and people are wondering what they can possibly do next. I've seen the machines that we're building games for, and they're spectacular.
...
"From my perspective, I don't see free-to-play slowing down because it works on so many levels," he says. "Developers can go as wide or as deep as they want, and reach out to new audiences. They can build more of what people are actually consuming, as opposed to having unpopular features and modes that we spent development time on."
"I actually think that free-to-play is going to be the dominant business model in this industry before the end of the decade. It will be the model that most people are used to."
Speaking of the future, AAA games will die out. So says the maker of a AAA game.
Assassin's Creed 3 creative director Alex Hutchinson has described the latest game in the series as one of the last of the giant triple-A "dinosaurs".
Approximately 600 Ubisoft Montreal staff have worked on the project, supported by numerous other Ubi studios including Quebec City, Bucharest and Singapore, and Hutchinson told the latest issue of Edge that this type of massive production is a dying breed.
"We're the last of the dinosaurs. We're still the monster triple-A game with very large teams [and] multiple studios helping out on different bits. There are fewer and fewer of these games being made, especially as the middle has fallen out," he said.
"We really felt like this was a rare opportunity. We had an experienced team, who had worked on the franchise for a while; we had the full backing of Ubisoft to make something huge; we had almost three years to do it, which is a rarity these days; the tech and the hardware platforms were both mature, which allowed us to start running instead of building base features; and the installed user base for all platforms is massive.
"Many of these factors are about to change, by choice of circumstance," Hutchinson added, "so a lot of us truly believed this was a once in a career opportunity."
Cliff Bleszinski is another to express the belief that we'll see fewer blockbuster releases each year once the next generation of consoles arrives, suggesting last December that the cost of developing major games on new hardware could prove too prohibitive for all but the biggest names in the industry.
Speaking of the future, AAA games will die out. So says the maker of a AAA game.
Assassin's Creed 3 creative director Alex Hutchinson has described the latest game in the series as one of the last of the giant triple-A "dinosaurs".
Approximately 600 Ubisoft Montreal staff have worked on the project, supported by numerous other Ubi studios including Quebec City, Bucharest and Singapore, and Hutchinson told the latest issue of Edge that this type of massive production is a dying breed.
"We're the last of the dinosaurs. We're still the monster triple-A game with very large teams [and] multiple studios helping out on different bits. There are fewer and fewer of these games being made, especially as the middle has fallen out," he said.
"We really felt like this was a rare opportunity. We had an experienced team, who had worked on the franchise for a while; we had the full backing of Ubisoft to make something huge; we had almost three years to do it, which is a rarity these days; the tech and the hardware platforms were both mature, which allowed us to start running instead of building base features; and the installed user base for all platforms is massive.
"Many of these factors are about to change, by choice of circumstance," Hutchinson added, "so a lot of us truly believed this was a once in a career opportunity."
Cliff Bleszinski is another to express the belief that we'll see fewer blockbuster releases each year once the next generation of consoles arrives, suggesting last December that the cost of developing major games on new hardware could prove too prohibitive for all but the biggest names in the industry.
I can't really argue with that, since the majority of games will fail to make their 2 million goal.
I just wonder if the method of selling games needs to change, radically. Right now, I'm looking at both Borderlands 2 and Dishonored, coming out within a couple of weeks of each other. Time was I had the disposable income to get both of those without flinching, but I'm not in that position now, so I'm having to consider that purchase a whole lot more, which instantly calls one of those sales into question, and could end up in no purchase of one of those games. Right at this moment, there are a huge number of consoles in homes, and yet we constantly see good, well-made games failing to sell to even a tiny fraction of those. I would absolutely love to see a publisher just go completely nuts and drop the price of their big release to £20, and see how many units they shift.
What counts as AAA? Is it just these massive, all hands on deck games, like CoD or AssCreed? Does Bioshock Infinite count? Dishonored? XCom? Because if stuff like XCom and Infinte and Dishonored and Darksiders 2 or Saint's Row The Third are A or AA games, yeah, let's make more of that shit!
Hey, I'm ok with fewer sequels if it means they take the time to make each one unique and not just have one come out each year, like AssCreed has been doing. But I recognize that I'm weird in wanting fewer, better games instead of a new one all the time always.
I'm with you, and I HAVE the disposable income to buy games and I just don't anymore because 60 bucks just feels like robbery. 30 bucks is my impulse buy territory and I feel like that's all a lot of games are even worth anymore.
I've become the anti-consumer I suppose because of the stupid "next gen tax", I'll rent Dishonored and Borderlands 2 or buy used one day but neither publisher will ever see my money. Whereas for 30 bucks apiece I'd probably take the plunge without thinking about it. I can't be alone here.
Speaking of the future, AAA games will die out. So says the maker of a AAA game.
Assassin's Creed 3 creative director Alex Hutchinson has described the latest game in the series as one of the last of the giant triple-A "dinosaurs".
Approximately 600 Ubisoft Montreal staff have worked on the project, supported by numerous other Ubi studios including Quebec City, Bucharest and Singapore, and Hutchinson told the latest issue of Edge that this type of massive production is a dying breed.
"We're the last of the dinosaurs. We're still the monster triple-A game with very large teams [and] multiple studios helping out on different bits. There are fewer and fewer of these games being made, especially as the middle has fallen out," he said.
"We really felt like this was a rare opportunity. We had an experienced team, who had worked on the franchise for a while; we had the full backing of Ubisoft to make something huge; we had almost three years to do it, which is a rarity these days; the tech and the hardware platforms were both mature, which allowed us to start running instead of building base features; and the installed user base for all platforms is massive.
"Many of these factors are about to change, by choice of circumstance," Hutchinson added, "so a lot of us truly believed this was a once in a career opportunity."
Cliff Bleszinski is another to express the belief that we'll see fewer blockbuster releases each year once the next generation of consoles arrives, suggesting last December that the cost of developing major games on new hardware could prove too prohibitive for all but the biggest names in the industry.
I can't really argue with that, since the majority of games will fail to make their 2 million goal.
I just wonder if the method of selling games needs to change, radically. Right now, I'm looking at both Borderlands 2 and Dishonored, coming out within a couple of weeks of each other. Time was I had the disposable income to get both of those without flinching, but I'm not in that position now, so I'm having to consider that purchase a whole lot more, which instantly calls one of those sales into question, and could end up in no purchase of one of those games. Right at this moment, there are a huge number of consoles in homes, and yet we constantly see good, well-made games failing to sell to even a tiny fraction of those. I would absolutely love to see a publisher just go completely nuts and drop the price of their big release to £20, and see how many units they shift.
Valve has already forgotten more about pricing goods with little to no marginal costs than the other developers will ever know.
As for the rest it will be interesting to see how this next generation goes. If we have to say things like 4 ( or even 5) million is the new 2 million then it's hard to see how a new console generation could even get off the ground.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I think 60 for a game is not an unreasonable price at all.
Video games have been remarkably resistant to inflation and even short games are better value for the dollar compared to buying a new movie on DVD or Blu-Ray.
But even though I think the price is fair, I have a hard time bringing myself to pay it.
The last three games I paid full price for were Guild Wars 2, the Mass Effect 3 CE and Star Wars: TOR (all physical copies as well). Before that it gets fuzzy. Between Steam and Greenmangaming, I don't feel as comfortable paying full price for games anymore. That being said, I bought Sleeping Dogs and Darksiders 2 only because I could get them for $37. I wouldn't have bought them from GMG had they been full price and I would've waited for a sale. I did buy Borderlands 2 and would've for full price, but I got it cheaper on GMG as well. I also leaned towards those games as they were Steamworks.
Buying games digitally has meant that I will very rarely pay full price for a game, but I buy way more games than I used to.
You know, with all these ginormous financial goals not being met I'm starting to believe we'll see a price increase next gen. We've already seen a price increase to $40 on portables, and that sometimes goes up to $50 on Vita.
I had forgotten about Dishonored and Borderlands 2 coming out so close to each other. Dishonored looks shit hot, but I get the feeling its (relative) lack of buzz and the fact that it's trying to do something different will cause it to be the definite loser in that fight.
The only console games I'm buying these days are ones I want to specifically play with friends. Months before and days after release, sites like GMG have ludicrous sales on PC games, most of which activate on Steam. Yeah, I'll pay $40 for Darksiders 2 instead of $60, thanks. $40 is the price at which I'll buy stuff I normally would wait on. It's not too expensive, I don't really have to justify it and it let's me play stuff while people are still talking about it.
I don't think $60 is unreasonable. I think $60 for every game is. There are tons of games that would hit their multi-million price points if they were priced aggressively. Every Blu ray that comes out isn't priced the same. Why should all video games be? I know it's just second hand knowledge, but I have several friends who would buy more games at a lesser price point. As it is, what with kids or lack of well-paying job, it's get the big shit (Halo, CoD, Mass Effect, Borderlands [or in one case, a single copy of XCom]) and maybe check out some of the more more esoteric games when Gamefly is flipping used copies for 20 bones in January.
I have to echo the same thing. It's not that $60 isn't fair, but the flaw with it is that it's now only worth paying for the guaranteed hits. Which feeds into the publishing problem where nobody wants to take risks on new IP's, because nobody is gambling their 60 on something brand new.
If they decide to up the price of games, then new IP's are going to go from endangered species to extinct.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I find it very hard to be upset at paying £30-40 for video games when I've got friends who'll spend that much in a single night drinking (students :rotate: ). I'm also okay with developers moving away from triple A releases; what would something like Dark Souls be classified as? It hit 1 million and was considered wildly successful. It's funny that Sega are running counter to this idea though, focusing solely on their "four pillars" rather than more, smaller projects.
With the rising cost of everything (and the proliferation of day one 10/25% on popular 3DS games!) I'm perfectly fine with most new game prices. All I need to do is go meatless for two weeks to buy an unbudgeted 3DS game when only a few years it was more like six weeks to get a similar amount of cash.
Theatrical releases also sucking has dramatically shifted my entertainment expenditures over to video games. A movie for two which I'd probably go to every other week in 2006-2010 is now about the same as a 3DS game, maybe even a bit more.
PC sales are even more ridiculous. If it's not an Activision mega title it will fall in price quickly. If the multiplayer is any good it will survive until the game goes below twenty bucks. Then there are back catalog sales. Oh hey, every iD Soft game pre 2002 for 8 bucks.
I was just reading the new thread from today about the status of any 40K games, and that got me to thinking about the publisher in general, and thus why I'm posting this in the industry thread instead of in the 40K thread.
I don't understand how or why THQ could be having as much financial trouble as they reportedly are right now. They have had some very successful releases within the last year or so.
Saints Row 3 did exceptionally well. It still continues to do well.
Darksiders 2 also did especially well.
Homefront sold a bazillion copies at it's release. Sure, it was garbage, but a lot of people still bought it.
WWE 12 did pretty decent last year since they had the Rock all over their advertising.
WWE 13 will probably also do very well this year since they are using Steve Austin as their poster boy.
Anymore, PC gaming is a much smaller market and might even be considered "niche," but the DoW series does well, and the original CoH did well. There's plenty of reason to believe that CoH 2 will sell quite well also. And while there hasn't been any concrete detail on DoW3, the fact that we know it's in development is also a good omen.
I guess I just don't understand where their struggles are stemming from, considering the relative success they are seeing. Are they as big as Activision, EA, or Ubisoft? No. But that doesn't mean they haven't published some spectacular A+ titles in recent gaming history.
I was just reading the new thread from today about the status of any 40K games, and that got me to thinking about the publisher in general, and thus why I'm posting this in the industry thread instead of in the 40K thread.
I don't understand how or why THQ could be having as much financial trouble as they reportedly are right now. They have had some very successful releases within the last year or so.
Saints Row 3 did exceptionally well. It still continues to do well.
Darksiders 2 also did especially well.
Homefront sold a bazillion copies at it's release. Sure, it was garbage, but a lot of people still bought it.
WWE 12 did pretty decent last year since they had the Rock all over their advertising.
WWE 13 will probably also do very well this year since they are using Steve Austin as their poster boy.
Anymore, PC gaming is a much smaller market and might even be considered "niche," but the DoW series does well, and the original CoH did well. There's plenty of reason to believe that CoH 2 will sell quite well also. And while there hasn't been any concrete detail on DoW3, the fact that we know it's in development is also a good omen.
I guess I just don't understand where their struggles are stemming from, considering the relative success they are seeing. Are they as big as Activision, EA, or Ubisoft? No. But that doesn't mean they haven't published some spectacular A+ titles in recent gaming history.
They screwed up big time with the uDraw tablet. It did well on the Wii so they spent a lot of money to get it on the 360 and PS3 where it was dead on arrival.
Homefront did not meet expectations. DS2 apparently has ridiculous expectations that it also probably won't meet. Most of the rest of that is true enough, but it's missing the real story behind THQ which is that it is poorly managed and couldn't survive the transition when it went from low return but safe return licesnsed games to semi AAA game studio. Only Saint's Row 2/3 exceeded expectations.
uDraw HD wasn't even some spectacular failure, it was just the one that really put people on notice.
I think 60 for a game is not an unreasonable price at all.
Video games have been remarkably resistant to inflation and even short games are better value for the dollar compared to buying a new movie on DVD or Blu-Ray.
But even though I think the price is fair, I have a hard time bringing myself to pay it.
That's great and all, but food has not been remarkably resistant to inflation, and I'm sure many people would rather spend that $60 for a week's worth of food for themselves at the supermarket(or, god help them, a single full gas tank in some areas) than what are typically turning out to be three hour games for many of these big budget shortfests(not specifically AC) unless they're going to be guaranteed good games(which leads to IP over-harvesting like with AC). And I'm sure that's the type of thing that's also scratching at the recesses of your mind, making you hesitant to pay that price tag.
All I need to do is go meatless for two weeks to buy an unbudgeted 3DS game when only a few years it was more like six weeks to get a similar amount of cash.
I... Do you realize how strange that idea would still sound to anything but select audiences? I guess if you're just targeting full on mega gamers like you and most of the PA forums, sure. But there's no way in the dark recesses of hell that Farmville mom #1,345 is going to do anything like that.
Homefront sold a bazillion copies at it's release. Sure, it was garbage, but a lot of people still bought it.
Probably because Homefront looked pretty gurfix, and had a storyline that actually had something resembling potential. It wasn't Russkis or Ay-rabs this time, and it had a timing of playing on fears of North Korea's monthly "look at me! you haven't been looking at me lately!" displays.
Unfortunately the gameplay didn't live up to the hype as you could imagine.
Homefront actually sold quite poorly (considering its development studio was shut down and the Homefront sequel was tossed to another team), THQ's old cash cow in the form of children's' games stopped selling, and the uDraw was a massive money pit. Without the uDraw, THQ would be okayish right now, but you can't underestimate just how much money they sunk into that thing.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
0
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Forgetting Red Faction Armageddon, which was crashing and burning right about the time they started showing bruises, and Space Marine, which reportedly did quite well and exceeded expectations. Along with a bunch of licensed shovelware that, from their announcement that they wouldn't be doing that sort of work anymore, I imagine didn't do particularly well either.
And DS2 may or may not have ridiculous expectations, the only source we have for that concept is a very poorly worded answer in an interview where they state that if it sells X number, Rubin can't really deny them another sequel.
They had enough stuff in the profitable pile that I have to imagine the uDraw had an incredibly significant effect on their financial woes.
Miseta was the manager of marketing at Stardock when she left the company abruptly three weeks before Elemental shipped. Documents obtained by Kotaku show that when she left in August, 2010, she was threatening a suit against Wardell for sexual harassment. That suit was filed in December, 2010, seeking unspecified damages in excess of $25,000. (According to Michigan law, an employee must first file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before he or she can proceed with a lawsuit; the EEOC may then take up to 180 days to review the complaint.)
Court records from the lawsuit show several troubling messages from Wardell to Miseta, as well as allegations of problematic in-person behavior. E-mail messages included in the records go back as far as March, 2008, and include a link to a sexually explicit YouTube video, a comment that Miseta was chosen to go to a conference "not just because you're 'hot'," and a 100-question "purity test" that he asked her to take and then send him her score from. The purity test includes questions like, "Have you engaged in group sex?," "Have you engaged in intercourse with an unconscious person, while conscious?," and, "Have you had anal intercourse?"
Witness depositions included in the case documents refer to multiple comments from Wardell to female employees about their breast and bra sizes, and one incident where he asked Miseta to attend a media tour because "[her] nipples look better on TV." They also describe a time on a media tour when Wardell's visit to the hotel room Miseta and another female colleague were sharing made Miseta feel uncomfortable.
In May 2010, during a dinner on a media tour, Wardell touched Miseta's hair. It was evidently the last straw for Miseta, who, on June 6, after the media tour had ended, sent her boss an e-mail asking him to change his behavior:
Please never touch my hair or any of my body parts; not even jokingly.
Please do not talk about my private life or about my boyfriend/future husband in any terms especially negative terms.
Please be careful with your "jokes" which are at many times inappropriate, sexist, vulgar and very embarrassing not only to me, but everyone present.
Please keep your negative personal opinions of others (including family members and/or coworkers) not present at the time of your comments, to yourself. I feel, at times, it puts me in a very uncomfortable position.
With the above few behavioral changes, I'm hoping our previously friendly and professional relationship can be reestablished.
Wardell's reply began cordially, "Thank you for bringing these up to me as I certainly do not want you to feel uncomfortable at work." He promised to be more careful in the future regarding items one and two, but then continued:
#3, however is not acceptable to me. I am an inappropriate, sexist, vulgar and embarrassing person and I'm not inclined to change my behavior. If this is a problem, you need to find another job.
#4, Again, I am not willing to adapt my behavior to suit others. If you find my behavior problematic, I recommend finding another job.
I'm not some manager or coworker of yours. I own the company. It, and your job there, exist to suit my purposes, not vice versa. The company is not an end unto itself, it is a means to an end which is to further the objectives of its shareholders (in this case, me).
Of course Brad being the wise man he is decided to defend himself on the interwebs
Ok, I'm going to respond here since I'm being directly accused of something.
The incident that started this happened back in 2010. Myself, Alexandra, and a few others were at a pub while waiting to go to the Qt3 dinner that Lloyd case had set up.
While there, Alexandra got teased and got mad. At the time, i didn't realize she was so upset about it. So we went to the Qt3 get together (that some here may have even been at) and that.
She later emailed me telling me she was mad about the incident - to which I apologized for hurting her feeligs but also insisted that I watch what jokes I tell around the office. (To understand the context, we're a relaxed software company, lots of Family guy jokes, Simpsons references, Robot Chicken references, etc.). To which I responded, admittedly, very very harshly to.
Now, you can argue that I was a jerk in how I responded to her. But it does not justify her getting pissed off, quitting without notice and using her network access to wipe out our marketing assets 3 weeks before the ship of the game forcing me and a few other key team members to scramble at the last second to deal with it.
In addition, I would ask those who are so quick to condemn me personally to ask themselves this - what impact do you think it would have on your team if a key person quit, wiped out a bunch of stuff and made a bunch of legal theats? Think of the effect it would have around the office.
NO one has suggested that if she hadn't done this that Elemental would have been a great game. But there is a huge gulf between having a "great game" and a "total disaster". The ultimate blame for the game's failure lies with me for reasons I've stated countless times. But that doesn't excuse someone from maliciously and intentionally wiping out years worth of marketing data, assets, etc.
And the charge that this is "retaliatory" is ridiculous and, frankly, offensive to not just me but virtually everyone here at Stardock - who I can assure you are at least as pissed off as I was about what she did.
The only thing that has recently changed is that our case against her got moved to federal court and that we have continued our position of not settling her frivolous case.
He's still there defending himself and posting parts of the email to justify himself as well.
I was just reading the new thread from today about the status of any 40K games, and that got me to thinking about the publisher in general, and thus why I'm posting this in the industry thread instead of in the 40K thread.
I don't understand how or why THQ could be having as much financial trouble as they reportedly are right now. They have had some very successful releases within the last year or so.
Saints Row 3 did exceptionally well. It still continues to do well.
Darksiders 2 also did especially well.
Homefront sold a bazillion copies at it's release. Sure, it was garbage, but a lot of people still bought it.
WWE 12 did pretty decent last year since they had the Rock all over their advertising.
WWE 13 will probably also do very well this year since they are using Steve Austin as their poster boy.
Anymore, PC gaming is a much smaller market and might even be considered "niche," but the DoW series does well, and the original CoH did well. There's plenty of reason to believe that CoH 2 will sell quite well also. And while there hasn't been any concrete detail on DoW3, the fact that we know it's in development is also a good omen.
I guess I just don't understand where their struggles are stemming from, considering the relative success they are seeing. Are they as big as Activision, EA, or Ubisoft? No. But that doesn't mean they haven't published some spectacular A+ titles in recent gaming history.
Saints Row 3 was a winner. It's the reason the expansion is being blown up into a full game.
Darksiders 2 is a recent release.
Homefront hit way below expectations, to the point THQ killed Kaos Studios.
Insane was probably eating some cashflow, as was Vigil's 40K MMO, whihc is now just an action game.
uDraw's launch on 360 and PS3 was disastrous.
THQ's problem is it's spending to be the big boys (EA, Activision, and Ubisoft), but it's not hitting their sales levels.
Available to pre-order now ahead of its release this November, the 84-inch XBR-84X900 has a 3840 x 2160 resolution - that's four times the pixels of full HD.
Other key features include 3D viewing, a virtual 5.1 surround sound field and online connectivity through the Sony Entertainment Network. Get the full tech specs here.
Just as the PS3 played a key role in establishing Blu-ray and later 3D content, PlayStation 4 is expected to form part of Sony's plan to push 4K tech out to consumers.
Available to pre-order now ahead of its release this November, the 84-inch XBR-84X900 has a 3840 x 2160 resolution - that's four times the pixels of full HD.
Other key features include 3D viewing, a virtual 5.1 surround sound field and online connectivity through the Sony Entertainment Network. Get the full tech specs here.
Just as the PS3 played a key role in establishing Blu-ray and later 3D content, PlayStation 4 is expected to form part of Sony's plan to push 4K tech out to consumers.
So, how many extra jobs am I supposed to handle this time?
I'm really not feeling Sony's superhigh-end strategy here, to me it just looks overly optimistic. Like those american pioneer settlers who, with high hopes and extreme determination, decided to venture west but ended up snowed in and resorted to cannibalism. Yes, undeniably the future is in that general direction, but I don't see anything good coming from it in the immediate future. They don't have the spare resources to handle another "Bluray Scenario" where their fancy new technology costs them a shitton but never pays them back, neither in the form of marketshare nor straight up revenue.
Alright and in this next scene all the animals have AIDS.
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Correction: While it's primarily a Hatsune Miku focused game, there's six different Vocaloids total doing songs in Project Diva f.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
However, apparently when Persona 4 came out, people bought the game and the Vita, boosting sales but they just traded them back when they were done with them. That might happen again
The real shocker for me here is the Soul Hackers numbers. It gives me hope that SMT4 will actually sell well
edit: ffs sega
Hatsune Miku Project Diva F Sequel Difficult Due to Development Costs
http://andriasang.com/con2lc/miku_sequel/
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/09/04/microsoft-xbox-next-delay-rumors-abound/
In all honesty this doesn't surprise me. The original 360 was so horribly made it should have been recalled. So whatever needs to be done to prevent the RRoD from happening again is good.
I wonder if social games will be like MMOs where sequels will often not have near the success that the first game enjoyed.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I imagine there would be for the primary reasons that people would generally be reluctant to give up what they currently have in the original game, especially if they have been paying into the cash shop to get what they have. And I doubt they would really want to divide their time between two of what is essentially going to be the same game.
Hard to fathom them having production issues with what is largely off the shelf product.
Unless they decided to R&D, fabricate, and manufacture their own chip this generation, and if so, I seriously missed that news.
Well, red ring of death and all that. Though that debacle didn't really seem to impact 360 sales much in the long run.
At any rate, Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels, has an interview with GamesIndustry. Some bits:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-09-03-frank-gibeau-order-chaos-and-a-new-golden-age-of-gaming
I'm thinking they've selected a freshly developed manufacturing process with very low yields - Say, 22 nm perhaps. They're gonna need a small node to cope with the heat and power limitations of a set-top box of course, which would be as good a reason as any for choosing it, but seeing as 22 nm is so fresh and manufacturers have had similar problems before... Yeah, I'm thinking that's where the problem lies. It wouldn't even have to be that small a node, the same problem could arise with other slightly larger nodes as well.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
Seriously, what are the chances you make back a gigantic development budget for, say, GTAV in 1080p on the WiiU alone? I'm going to guess 'fucking terrible'.
A golend age! Hooray! Cash shops and tacked on multiplayer modes for everyone!
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/366637/assassins-creed-3-the-last-of-the-triple-a-dinosaurs/
I can't really argue with that, since the majority of games will fail to make their 2 million goal.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
I just wonder if the method of selling games needs to change, radically. Right now, I'm looking at both Borderlands 2 and Dishonored, coming out within a couple of weeks of each other. Time was I had the disposable income to get both of those without flinching, but I'm not in that position now, so I'm having to consider that purchase a whole lot more, which instantly calls one of those sales into question, and could end up in no purchase of one of those games. Right at this moment, there are a huge number of consoles in homes, and yet we constantly see good, well-made games failing to sell to even a tiny fraction of those. I would absolutely love to see a publisher just go completely nuts and drop the price of their big release to £20, and see how many units they shift.
Hey, I'm ok with fewer sequels if it means they take the time to make each one unique and not just have one come out each year, like AssCreed has been doing. But I recognize that I'm weird in wanting fewer, better games instead of a new one all the time always.
I've become the anti-consumer I suppose because of the stupid "next gen tax", I'll rent Dishonored and Borderlands 2 or buy used one day but neither publisher will ever see my money. Whereas for 30 bucks apiece I'd probably take the plunge without thinking about it. I can't be alone here.
Valve has already forgotten more about pricing goods with little to no marginal costs than the other developers will ever know.
As for the rest it will be interesting to see how this next generation goes. If we have to say things like 4 ( or even 5) million is the new 2 million then it's hard to see how a new console generation could even get off the ground.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Video games have been remarkably resistant to inflation and even short games are better value for the dollar compared to buying a new movie on DVD or Blu-Ray.
But even though I think the price is fair, I have a hard time bringing myself to pay it.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Buying games digitally has meant that I will very rarely pay full price for a game, but I buy way more games than I used to.
Steam: abunchofdaftpunk | PSN: noautomobilesgo | Lastfm: sjchszeppelin | Backloggery: colincummings | 3DS FC: 1392-6019-0219 |
I had forgotten about Dishonored and Borderlands 2 coming out so close to each other. Dishonored looks shit hot, but I get the feeling its (relative) lack of buzz and the fact that it's trying to do something different will cause it to be the definite loser in that fight.
I don't think $60 is unreasonable. I think $60 for every game is. There are tons of games that would hit their multi-million price points if they were priced aggressively. Every Blu ray that comes out isn't priced the same. Why should all video games be? I know it's just second hand knowledge, but I have several friends who would buy more games at a lesser price point. As it is, what with kids or lack of well-paying job, it's get the big shit (Halo, CoD, Mass Effect, Borderlands [or in one case, a single copy of XCom]) and maybe check out some of the more more esoteric games when Gamefly is flipping used copies for 20 bones in January.
If they decide to up the price of games, then new IP's are going to go from endangered species to extinct.
Theatrical releases also sucking has dramatically shifted my entertainment expenditures over to video games. A movie for two which I'd probably go to every other week in 2006-2010 is now about the same as a 3DS game, maybe even a bit more.
PC sales are even more ridiculous. If it's not an Activision mega title it will fall in price quickly. If the multiplayer is any good it will survive until the game goes below twenty bucks. Then there are back catalog sales. Oh hey, every iD Soft game pre 2002 for 8 bucks.
I was just reading the new thread from today about the status of any 40K games, and that got me to thinking about the publisher in general, and thus why I'm posting this in the industry thread instead of in the 40K thread.
I don't understand how or why THQ could be having as much financial trouble as they reportedly are right now. They have had some very successful releases within the last year or so.
Saints Row 3 did exceptionally well. It still continues to do well.
Darksiders 2 also did especially well.
Homefront sold a bazillion copies at it's release. Sure, it was garbage, but a lot of people still bought it.
WWE 12 did pretty decent last year since they had the Rock all over their advertising.
WWE 13 will probably also do very well this year since they are using Steve Austin as their poster boy.
Anymore, PC gaming is a much smaller market and might even be considered "niche," but the DoW series does well, and the original CoH did well. There's plenty of reason to believe that CoH 2 will sell quite well also. And while there hasn't been any concrete detail on DoW3, the fact that we know it's in development is also a good omen.
I guess I just don't understand where their struggles are stemming from, considering the relative success they are seeing. Are they as big as Activision, EA, or Ubisoft? No. But that doesn't mean they haven't published some spectacular A+ titles in recent gaming history.
They screwed up big time with the uDraw tablet. It did well on the Wii so they spent a lot of money to get it on the 360 and PS3 where it was dead on arrival.
uDraw HD wasn't even some spectacular failure, it was just the one that really put people on notice.
That's great and all, but food has not been remarkably resistant to inflation, and I'm sure many people would rather spend that $60 for a week's worth of food for themselves at the supermarket(or, god help them, a single full gas tank in some areas) than what are typically turning out to be three hour games for many of these big budget shortfests(not specifically AC) unless they're going to be guaranteed good games(which leads to IP over-harvesting like with AC). And I'm sure that's the type of thing that's also scratching at the recesses of your mind, making you hesitant to pay that price tag.
I... Do you realize how strange that idea would still sound to anything but select audiences? I guess if you're just targeting full on mega gamers like you and most of the PA forums, sure. But there's no way in the dark recesses of hell that Farmville mom #1,345 is going to do anything like that.
Probably because Homefront looked pretty gurfix, and had a storyline that actually had something resembling potential. It wasn't Russkis or Ay-rabs this time, and it had a timing of playing on fears of North Korea's monthly "look at me! you haven't been looking at me lately!" displays.
Unfortunately the gameplay didn't live up to the hype as you could imagine.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
And DS2 may or may not have ridiculous expectations, the only source we have for that concept is a very poorly worded answer in an interview where they state that if it sells X number, Rubin can't really deny them another sequel.
They had enough stuff in the profitable pile that I have to imagine the uDraw had an incredibly significant effect on their financial woes.
I'm the boss, nice boobs!
Of course Brad being the wise man he is decided to defend himself on the interwebs
He's still there defending himself and posting parts of the email to justify himself as well.
It's bewildering.
The sun rises, the sun sets, the leaves turn, the seasons change, and Brad Wardell is an enormous asshole.
The cycles of the world continue as they always have.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Saints Row 3 was a winner. It's the reason the expansion is being blown up into a full game.
Darksiders 2 is a recent release.
Homefront hit way below expectations, to the point THQ killed Kaos Studios.
Insane was probably eating some cashflow, as was Vigil's 40K MMO, whihc is now just an action game.
uDraw's launch on 360 and PS3 was disastrous.
THQ's problem is it's spending to be the big boys (EA, Activision, and Ubisoft), but it's not hitting their sales levels.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
It didn't sell poorly, but it also didn't meet expectations.
Because they were expecting it to be the next CoD.
So, how many extra jobs am I supposed to handle this time?
I'm really not feeling Sony's superhigh-end strategy here, to me it just looks overly optimistic. Like those american pioneer settlers who, with high hopes and extreme determination, decided to venture west but ended up snowed in and resorted to cannibalism. Yes, undeniably the future is in that general direction, but I don't see anything good coming from it in the immediate future. They don't have the spare resources to handle another "Bluray Scenario" where their fancy new technology costs them a shitton but never pays them back, neither in the form of marketshare nor straight up revenue.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
It charted yeah, but didn't come anywhere near to the 2 million copy goal.
This is part of why the industry's screwed up.